Dave Grohl Says Tears for Fears Got Him Through Puberty

Dave Grohl has been influenced by a wide array of artists throughout his childhood and career — including many a hardcore band — but probably none is more surprising than his recent admission of his teenage love for Tears for Fears. An interest indirectly steered by his older sister, Grohl says the English pop band's music helped him through puberty.

While the Foo Fighters' upcoming album Concrete and Gold, about which Grohl has been dropping hints for months, has been helmed by pop producer Greg Kurstin, Grohl eschewed any restrictions on recording based on what can be reproduced live, he says. Thirty-two stacked vocals? No problem. They'll make it work, with an on-stage energy that's rooted in Grohl's childhood viewing of AC/DC film Let There Be Rock.

As one might expect, “By 12 or 13, I was going in the direction of faster, louder, darker…while my sister, Lisa, three years older, was getting seriously into new wave territory. We’d meet in the middle sometimes with Bowie and Siouxsie and the Banshees, but I would hardly ever dig into her record collection for fear I would find some terrible John Hughes soundtrack," he told MOJO.

“But my sister had The Hurting and Songs From the Big Chair and I secretly fell in love with Tears for Fears," he said of Tears for Fears' 1983 debut album and their 1985 followup. "That melancholic sense of melody really encapsulated that specific place and time in my life – when you’re 13 years old, your nuts are dropping, your voice is changing, you’re breaking through puberty, so listening to Tears for Fears somehow soothes the burn.”